Page 20 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

“Your turn!” Heidi didn’t want to talk to their bitch of a boss any more than Harry did. So they’d started taking turns answering Director Reese’s calls.

Harry did one of his can’t-hear-you things by pounding away on his keyboard.

Yeah, right! He’d pay for that later and he knew it. But Harry was never big on thinking about consequences; a bad habit they both had from their hacker days.

She started the payback by actually picking up the phone rather than using the speaker so that he could listen in.

“CIA Cyber Division, how can we be of service today?” She put on her sweetest voice, the one Clarissa seriously hated.

It practically made her long Nordic-blonde hair curl each time.

Of course, after so many years of working together, if she was actually civil, Clarissa would assume she was up to more than she already was.

“You saw it?” Not even a snarl back.

“Yeah, we’re working on it already.”

“You’re excused from the meeting to—”

“What meeting?” Heidi enjoyed cutting her off.

Another line rang, forcing Harry to stop pretending and answer it.

“That meeting.” Clarissa must have heard the ring.

Meeting? Heidi mouthed to Harry.

He nodded.

She signaled him with a slash of her hand across her throat. He acknowledged the call and hung up.

“Show me just how good you two are. And show me fast.”

Clarissa hung up before Heidi could formulate some scathing remark. She waited a beat. Two. Nothing. Crap! She’d been on the inside for too long; her hacker brain was going stale.

Harry was back to buzzing away at his keyboard. He’d be fishing after any digital footprint in various databases, locked or not. She’d trust him to recover any tower communications, satellite tracking imagery, even flight profiles.

If her husband had one shortcoming, it was tunnel vision.

To him the entire world lived down in the data.

During her hacker days, before Bitch Clarissa had unmasked them both—and offered to recruit or bury them, their choice—she’d thought much the same.

But trying to understand their most dangerous enemy, the D/CIA herself, Heidi had learned that there was a bigger picture.

Clarissa couldn’t make a computer do jack shit, though at least she wasn’t one of those helpless souls who needed to call tech support every hour. But damn, the woman sure knew how to cultivate and manipulate people.

Harry’s brain simply couldn’t go there, but Heidi had learned a whole new level of skills by reading through Reese’s secure files.

Easily done, as Heidi and Harry had written those security routines after breaking through the multi-trap code-beast that Ctbr had someone out-of-house build for her.

Clarissa-the-Bitch Reese needed a better acronym, but Heidi hadn’t cooked one up yet; Cat-Brrr was far too cutesy and Caber too Scottish.

Just in case Harry wasn’t faking it, she used the speakerphone this time. If he was actually that deep in code, he probably wouldn’t hear the call anyway. He was her one-track man.

“Hey, Heidi.” Jeremy answered on the first ring.

“You still owe me, Jeremy, just warning you.”

“He still hasn’t convinced you yet? Babies can be really fun.”

“Remember, I was around for Amy’s colic.

” Jeremy had planted the idea in Harry’s head, but she still wasn’t ready for having one of their own.

Especially as Taz had described it: Like having an alien grow in your body.

When she’d forced Taz to watch Alien, her sole comment had been: Yeah, just like that. Major ick!

“Davito is much mellower.”

“Maybe, but with Harry and my genetics that so wouldn’t happen. Anyway, are you on it?” She hated that she was echoing Clarrisa Reese.

“Give us a chance. We just launched three minutes ago and we’re barely out the door.”

She heard car doors slamming and engines starting. “Come on. Miranda was in the room, I saw her. You gotta be further ahead than that.”

“I’m sure she is, but we aren’t yet. I’ll keep you informed.”

“You better. Or I’ll tell Taz that you’re furious she doesn’t want a third child.”

“But I don’t. We agreed we wanted two and—”

“God. You’re so fun to tease.”

Jeremy groaned. “Got me. I’m gone.”

And he was.

Heidi stared at the phone but couldn’t think of who else to call.

“What’s next?” She called out to Harry.

“NRO.” It struck her with a major flash of heat. If he was down to the National Reconnaissance Office, that meant he’d already cracked a whole lot of databases wide open. Her man was so good.

“On it.” She considered calling General Elizabeth Gray-Nason directly.

They’d never actually met, but she’d place a fair bet on the result of playing a friends-of-Jeremy card.

Though maybe not as she’d probably be crazy busy at the moment, what with the President and…

oh shit, her husband going down on the plane.

She glanced over at Harry. Maybe sooner rather than later on the kid thing. A piece of him, for her…just, you know, in case. She finally got it—damn Jeremy!

Not wanting to dump more on General Gray-Nason’s plate, Heidi decided to forego the phone call and hack the NRO instead. She didn’t need much—flight tracking, satellite imagery, and any secure comms—and the general must have other priorities. Besides, this would be more fun.